KFAI's MinneCulture Presents

The Epicenter of Unrest from The Signal Producer Aaron Henkin creates an audio-portrait of the neighborhood that became the epicenter of civil unrest in the wake of Freddie Gray 's death in police custody. These are the voices of Baltimore’s Penn North community just two days after the city was ravaged by arsons and looting last year. And this is just one chapter of WYPR's award-winning documentary series, Out of the Blocks . By sonically mapping one block at a time Mr. Henkin and musician Wendel Patrick are sharing the stories of their city in a way that's never been heard before.

Wordshakers from Hearing Voices Andrei Codrescu of The Exquisite Corpse takes us on an hour-long odyssey for National Poetry Month . Featuring stories by Scott Carrier, Barrett Golding , Larry Massett, Marjorie Van Halteren, among many more. We'll hear Thomas Edison's wax recordings of a speaker believed to be Walt Whitman, Lord Alfred Tennyson banging the podium, and Allen Ginsberg placing a personal ad. Then stick around as  Jan Kerouac responds to her father's poetry and parenting style in "Jan on Jack." Plus, Marianne Faithful recites Gregory Corso , DJ Spooky remixes Vladimir Maiakovski, and Carl Sandburg answers, "What is Poetry?" A special episode which is not to be missed.

Music While You Shop, Music While You Work  from Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening What if  history  had a sound track? What would it tell us about ourselves? Professor David Hendy  of the University of Sussex demonstrates how it has been used to  soothe us , to  cheer us , and even make us  productive  over the past hundred years. We'll also hear extremely rare recordings from wartime episodes of the much-loved BBC series, ' Music While You Work .'  An Ever Noisier World  from Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening The twentieth century brought attempts to distinguish between ' necessary ' and ' unnecessary’ noise .' In New York, the authorities tried to clean up  Coney Island  fairground, banning barkers from using megaphones and targeting street sellers, newspaper boys, and buskers. But the volume of  modern life  has risen inexorably. We will travel to Ghana’s capital,  Accra , a city...

It's pledge drive at our radio home!  To celebrate we're airing some of our favorite stories from the past year. Tonight's episode will include fantastic pieces by Abby Wendle , Paolo Pietropaolo , Karla Murthy , David Gerlach , and many more!  Tune in, enjoy the show, and please make a donation to great storytelling and public radio.  Thanks! http://kfai.org/support-us 

A Life Sentence: Victims, Offenders, Justice, and My Mother by Samantha Broun This is a story about a terrible crime and everything that followed. It’s an intensely personal documentary , but it extends into public life and into the heart of our political and correctional systems. Some stories take a long time. This one is an hour long and took two and a half years to produce, after twenty years of living with it. In 1994, producer Samantha Broun 's 55 year old mother was the victim of a violent crime . On the evening of September 21st a stranger came into her backyard and attacked her. Five hours later, he left her lying on her bed. Hands and feet bound with tape. Alive. We now know the stranger was a serial killer  and Samantha's mother was his only surviving victim.

Message in a Bottle by Megan Williams We are introduced to the music and lives of two lost composers: Viktor Ullmann and Gideon Klein . Both men were imprisoned in Terezin , a "model ghetto" created by the Nazis. This is where many of Europe's greatest artists, musicians , and writers were held, and expected to continue to create and perform during the Holocaust. Now, more than 70 years later, some of Ullmann and Klein's music is being re-discovered in attics, under beds, and hidden in libraries around the world.

Shell Shock   from Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening The rumble of artillery bombardment in Northern France could be heard  as far away as  Kent during the First World War. Up close in the trenches soldiers experienced a  sonic onslaught  that continued night and day: howling shells, the machine gun’s rattle, and the screams of injured men.  Professor Hendy  of the University of Sussex visits Flanders to relay  echoes  from the Front.  Radio Everywhere  from Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening Radio seemed like  magic  to begin with... then the Nazis exploited its  darker powers .  In the early days, listening to  radio  was an uncanny,  miraculous  experience. Amazingly, voices arrived out of thin air from hundreds of miles away. In time, the  radio  became a trusted part of family life - and by the 1930s and 40s, it was the perfect medium for  propag...